The Darkest Night

by Barbara Nadel

Genres: International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

Dark magic is unleashed on the streets of Istanbul . . .

When a newborn baby is found drowned in the shallow waters of the Golden Horn, all-out warfare threatens to erupt between rival criminal gangs. Inspector Kerim Gürsel is assigned to the case and he must tread carefully when DNA tests reveal that the baby's father is Görkan Paşahan, Istanbul's most feared Mafia boss. But the identity of the infant's mother is yet to be discovered . . .

Meanwhile, Çetin İkmen and Mehmet Süleyman attend the winter festival known as Bocuk Gecesi, held on the darkest night of the year, and witness a magic trick whereby a young man, Emir Kaya, disappears. While İkmen investigates how the illusion took place, Süleyman conducts a tortuous hunt for Emir Kaya that exposes a harrowing tale of depravation, betrayal and corruption where the bloodline of a child is worth killing for and everything has its price . . .
Praise for Barbara Nadel's novels:

'Complex and beguiling: a Turkish delight' Mick Herron

'İkmen is one of modern crime fiction's true heroes, complex yet likeable, and the city he inhabits - Istanbul - is just as fascinating' The Times

'Barbara Nadel's distinctive Istanbul-set Inspector İkmen thrillers combine brightly coloured scene setting with deliciously tortuous plots' Guardian

Release date: May 9, 2024

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

The tall woman in the nurse’s uniform bent down to kiss her sleeping lover. She whispered in his ear, ‘Your breath stinks.’

Çetin İkmen opened his eyes and said, ‘Are you going?’

‘Got to be at work for eight,’ she said. ‘Those crystal-meth casualties won’t treat themselves.’

Still sleep sodden, Çetin İkmen sat up in bed and ran his fingers through his thinning iron-grey hair. Rolling his tongue around his mouth, he realised that Peri Müngün had been right. His mouth tasted like mouldy grapes. That was the last time he was going to flirt with red wine. Brandy or rakı were his drinks. No more assignations with other alcoholic beverages even to please Peri.

He took his cigarettes and lighter off his bedside table and lit up. Then he placed an overflowing ashtray on his chest. He coughed, but persisted. Peri was nagging him to give up – not that she had, but then she was twenty years his junior. Much as he cared for her, İkmen thanked a God he didn’t believe in that they didn’t actually live together. She’d come over the previous evening for dinner and stayed as she often had during the course of the past year.

In truth, ex-inspector of police Çetin İkmen and nurse Peri Müngün had been an item since the end of 2019. But then the COVID-19 pandemic had intervened, and while Peri had fought, often day and night, to save people’s lives at the Surp Pirgic Hospital in Yedikule, İkmen had been locked inside his apartment with his eldest daughter and his cousin. It had been a dark time. Communicating with friends and family by phone – and, with the help of his daughter Çiçek via the Internet – had not been a lot of fun. And he’d been bored. Just the thought of it made him shudder with shame. Lots of people he knew had lost loved ones to COVID. He hadn’t lost anyone. What right had he to complain of boredom?

But then that was his character. Like his addiction to nicotine, it wasn’t anything he could or even wanted to do anything about. İkmen had retired from the police back in 2017, but had kept himself busy with private investigative work. However, all that had ended with COVID, and although lockdowns seemed now to be a thing of the past, his ad hoc business had yet to recover.

Using his voice to assist him, he got out of bed and wandered over to the bedroom window. On the way, he passed the mirror on his wardrobe door and briefly stared at himself. He was sixty-five now, heavily lined; his hair had thinned and he’d grown a beard, which he wasn’t really sure about; and he was skinny. What on earth did a woman like Peri see in him?

His window afforded views of both the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya. His father had bought the enormous old apartment İkmen now lived in back in the 1960s. Although the old man was long dead, İkmen still thanked him on a daily basis for leaving the place to him. For a native İstanbullu to live at the beating heart of the Old City was a great privilege, and he knew it. And it was worth a lot of money now.

Maybe Peri wanted him for his apartment?

İkmen laughed.

Watching her made his heart bleed. Not because of what she was doing – reading her cards for the coming day – but because of what he knew she would do when he approached her. But he always kissed her before he left for work. Just because she was sitting under the olive tree shouldn’t make a difference, but it did.

Inspector Mehmet Süleyman took a deep breath and walked out into the frost-dusted garden. His wife Gonca looked up from her tarot card layout, spread on a red cloth on the ground, and began to rise to her feet, slowly and painfully, one hand behind her to push against the ground, her face grimacing with the effort. And although he longed to help her, Mehmet knew that she wouldn’t accept help, not even from him.

‘Is it that time already, darling,’ she said as she stood in front of him, her arms outstretched.

He walked into her embrace and kissed her neck. ‘I’m afraid so.’

Mehmet Süleyman loved his job. Like his colleague, Kerim Gürsel, he’d worked all through the pandemic, risking his life to help the people of his city avoid COVID-19 and stay safe from crime. The strain had taken its toll, and although still a handsome man, Mehmet was now greyer and more lined than he’d been before. This, however, paled into insignificance compared to what Gonca had suffered.

She held him tight. ‘Love you, baby. Come home safe to me tonight.’

Gonca, like İkmen, was twelve years Mehmet’s senior. An accomplished artist whose work was admired across the world, she had given birth to twelve children by her first two husbands before she met Mehmet Süleyman. As an ethnic Romani, her marriage back in 2019 to a policeman distantly related to the Ottoman royal family had scandalised both Turks and her own people. But their love had persisted, even though it had been shaken by the death from COVID of Gonca’s second daughter, Hürrem.

He kissed her lips. ‘I will.’

‘Promise?’

He smiled at her. ‘I promise.’

She’d lost much of her confidence as well as her daughter back in 2020. Every day he’d had to go to work to the sound of his wife screaming in agony at the thought of losing him too. That had now quietened to this pleading for reassurance. Until recently, even her work rate had slowed down. While she’d continued to read tarot cards for clients over the phone during the pandemic, her art had all but ceased. The only part of her that had remained entirely intact through her grief was her desire for him. As she always had done, she made love like a woman possessed, clawing at his flesh, covering his body with bites, but at an intensity he had rarely experienced before. He’d taken to inspecting his body for the wounds she inflicted so he could cover them before he went to work.

But all that was as nothing to the damage that had been done to Gonca by COVID in 2021. Apparently she’d had it mildly, but it had left her with this stiffness in her limbs that she constantly tried to ignore or hide. He knew it caused her pain, but how to even raise the subject with her when she was such a proud woman?

He let her go and walked back towards the house they shared. She’d told him she was going to work on the costumes she was creating for them to wear on Bocuk Gecesi. She would, she’d said, present as herself, a witch, while for him she was in the process of altering the Ottoman army uniform that had been worn by his great-grandfather during the Great War. He didn’t really want to wear it, but he had agreed to do so because it pleased her. ‘You will’, she’d said, when she’d taken it out of his wardrobe, ‘be my prince for the night.’

The festival of Bocuk Gecesi, said to be the darkest night of the year, was not a native İstanbullu tradition. The idea of a night of misrule came from the Thracian city of Edirne, near the border with Greece. Based around a story about a malignant family of witches, people dressed up as ghouls, ghosts and historical figures and gave each other spiced pumpkin to eat – a well-known charm against evil. Organised by a group of artists and other creatives in the trendy district of Cihangir, İstanbul’s version of Bocuk Gecesi had been instrumental in bringing Gonca back to herself. She loved parties, and this was going to be a big night-time celebration featuring outdoor art exhibitions, communal feasting, and performances by street entertainers and magicians. Gonca’s contribution involved a work of art based on the darkest-night theme and some in-person card reading.

As he pulled the front door of their house in Balat closed behind him, Mehmet hoped that his wife would be able to cope.

‘I suppose,’ Dr Arto Sarkissian said as Kerim Gürsel helped him to his feet, ‘that in a city of seventeen million people, one is almost bound to see something like this once in a while.’ He looked down at the tiny body he had just been examining. ‘But I can never get used to it. Adults maybe. But not this . . .’

Kerim helped the pathologist brush dead grass from his overcoat, then said, ‘What do you think, Doctor?’

Dr Sarkissian shrugged. The Armenian was the oldest and dearest friend of Çetin İkmen. In spite of being a year older than the policeman, however, he had not chosen to retire and was now the İstanbul police’s leading pathologist.

‘I don’t think much at the moment,’ he said. ‘Until I get the poor little thing – female, by the way – back to the lab, I won’t be able to tell you much, Inspector. However, there is some bruising to the back of the neck I need to take a closer look at.’

‘What would you estimate her age to be?’ Kerim said. ‘I mean, I know I’m no expert, but she looks newborn or not much older to me.’

The doctor nodded. ‘You’re on the right lines there, Inspector Gürsel.’ He shook his head. ‘I fear we may be in the presence of a child born out of wedlock. Now that abortions have been made more difficult to obtain . . .’ He let his voice trail away.

Abortion had been legal in Turkey since the 1980s, but in recent years the law had been changed to make the procurement of one much more difficult. As a consequence of this, some women, out of desperation, had taken illegal routes to termination, while others had left their babies in places they hoped they might be found and taken care of by others. And while Kağıthane Creek was not an obvious place to put an unwanted child in the hope it would be rescued, this wasn’t impossible. Except that it was winter, and the child was naked.

‘Given the cold weather and the still sadly all-too-prevalent effects of the pandemic, I am somewhat backed up at the moment,’ the doctor continued. ‘Consequently I won’t be able to perform the post-mortem until late this afternoon. Would five p.m. work for you, Inspector?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Thank you. I’ll supervise the removal and leave you with scene-of-crime officers.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

There was no body bag. The doctor lifted the tiny body into a blanket and then placed it in a holdall. Kerim turned away quickly and spoke to his deputy. ‘We need to question the witnesses.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Officers in white coveralls moved in on the site.

‘What has a godfather firmly rooted in Kars got to do with us?’

Inspector Mevlüt Alibey of the Organised Crime division, a thin, grey-faced man in his early sixties, looked across the desk at Mehmet Süleyman and said, ‘Seriously?’

Süleyman smiled. ‘Mevlüt Bey, I am sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that in spite of the fact that we have all been under threat from a deadly virus for the past almost three years now, some İstanbullus still see fit to murder each other. Just this morning my colleague Inspector Gürsel has been called out to a suspected homicide in Kağıthane. I myself am currently fighting a losing battle to catch up with paperwork related to one gangland execution and a domestic murder, both more than six months old . . .’

‘Mehmet Bey, Ümit Avrant is a convicted killer . . .’

‘I know. He served twelve years for the murder of his brother, I recall. He’s done his time.’

‘Yes.’

‘However?’

‘Avrant’s son became engaged to the daughter of Görkan Paşahan back in April,’ Alibey continued. ‘A huge party was held to celebrate this event at the Çırağan Palace Hotel here in the city.’

‘I remember.’

Süleyman had married Gonca Şekeroğlu at the Çırağan Palace just prior to the pandemic. Back in April, when the Paşahans, one of the local crime families, had celebrated the engagement of daughter Sümeyye to Ümit Avrant’s son Atila at the venue, it had been covered extensively by the kind of breathless celebrity magazines Süleyman’s young niece liked to read.

‘So Avrant is in the process of buying two adjacent yalıs on Büyükada and has applied for permission to demolish them both and build some sort of futuristic iteration of the Starship Enterprise in its place for Atila and his bride.’

Süleyman, who came from a venerable Ottoman family that still owned a creaking yalı, or summer villa, on Büyükada, a small island in the Sea of Marmara, said, ‘Buildings on the Princes’ Islands are protected.’

‘With respect, Mehmet Bey, we both know that when it comes to crime families, particularly those in good odour with, shall we say, those with influence . . .’

Süleyman leaned back in his chair. ‘Forgive me, Mevlüt Bey. While Ümit Avrant may well be in good odour, his son’s prospective wife and her family are most certainly not. As I am sure you are aware, the whereabouts of Görkan Paşahan have become something of a national obsession.’

Shortly after his daughter’s engagement, the crime boss had left Turkey in the wake, it was said, of a disagreement with certain people in high places. Since then he had broadcast a series of podcasts threatening to detail what he knew about the private lives of various community leaders and politicians. He had also, it was alleged, killed a Latvian prostitute. Paşahan was a wanted man, both by Süleyman and his colleagues in Homicide and by the people he had threatened to expose. So far, his whereabouts had proved elusive.

Alibey leaned forward. ‘We’re trying to get to Paşahan’s money,’ he said. ‘If we can cut him off from his cash, we can possibly starve the bastard out. But there’s a problem: it’s all offshore. Mehmet Bey, I’ve come to you in order to find out what you’ve got on Paşahan regarding the death of this prostitute. When we can find him, maybe we can extradite him . . .’

It was clear that Alibey was under pressure from those way above his pay grade. İstanbul Commissioner of Police Selahattin Ozer was probably behind it. A friend of the ruling elites, Ozer was possibly under considerable pressure himself regarding Paşahan.

‘So this isn’t about Avrant at all?’ Süleyman said.

‘Well, it is inasmuch as Avrant appears to be moving into the city . . .’

‘Possibly.’ Süleyman tipped his head. ‘But surely any sort of alliance with Paşahan – were that ever a reality – has to be off the agenda at the moment due to Görkan Bey’s current status. I mean, I’m assuming the wedding is off . . .’

He brought up his records regarding the death of prostitute Sofija Ozola.

‘Sofija Ozola was found dead by her roommate, a Polish woman, in the apartment they shared in Kuzguncuk on 1 May 2022. Death by strangulation. Suspects were customers. Three ruled out. Forensics felt the place had been cleaned post-mortem, paucity of usable evidence. Anecdotal evidence that Paşahan was a regular.’ He looked up. ‘Motive unknown. However, Paşahan did leave the country on 10 May, and so . . .’

‘If we find him, can he be extradited?’

‘On what I have, it’s questionable. Hearsay. The only actual witness statement we had was later withdrawn. And while I infer from your presence here, Mevlüt Bey, that you are probably experiencing some pressure to progress the apprehension of Paşahan, I am not yet in that position. I will help you if I can, but my time is already limited, and with another potential unlawful killing today . . .’

‘I understand, Mehmet Bey,’ Alibey said. ‘It’s just . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve got my doubts about the notion of bringing him in on fraud charges.’

‘Because the money’s offshore?’

‘Not just that.’ Alibey looked behind him. It seemed the organised-crime officer didn’t want anyone overhearing what he was about to say next. ‘Mehmet Bey, I wouldn’t say this to anyone else. But as you know, while I never liked him, I always respected Inspector İkmen as a man of integrity, and I know you remain close.’

‘Yes . . .’

‘While some of Paşahan’s money, as we know, comes from his long-term connection to the heroin trade, much of it, we think, comes from sources some would rather didn’t come to light. Those connections he now seeks to . . . embarrass. I am, as you have indicated, experiencing some pressure, and yet I feel that should I find anything, it may be sidelined. Do you understand?’

Süleyman paused, time during which his personal mobile pinged to indicate he had a message. But he didn’t pick it up. Instead he said, ‘And so a review of my evidence concerning the death of Sofija Ozola would help, maybe?’

Alibey exhaled, relieved. ‘I would appreciate it, Mehmet Bey.’

‘Of course I cannot promise to come up with anything useful to you,’ Süleyman said. ‘And remember, we still don’t know where Paşahan is.’

‘No, but if you could . . .’

‘I will do my best.’

Alibey wanted a deflection, something to temporarily take the heat off his department. Understandably, he didn’t want to open the can of worms that was Paşahan’s finances, and nor did his bosses. But he was compelled to go through the motions, and if Süleyman could tie Paşahan to the death of Sofija Ozola, then that was all to the good, because he had some grave doubts about the gangster’s innocence.

When Alibey had gone, he picked up his mobile and opened the text he’d received. It was from Gonca. As well as reading her own cards every day, she also read for her husband. Süleyman didn’t know whether he believed in fortune telling, but this snippet did pique his interest: Darling, today you must beware of those who are not what they seem. I love you, Gonca.

He responded with a heart emoji.

The İstekli family lived in one of the new high-rise apartment blocks that of late had characterised much of the Kağıthane district. On the eighth floor, the family’s three-bed apartment was smart and spacious, and was also testament to the success of father Mustafa İstekli’s hard work as a civil engineer. His wife, Ece, a covered woman, didn’t work, spending most of her time attending to the needs of their two sons, eleven-year-old Levent and four-year-old Necip.

When Kerim Gürsel and Eylül Yavaş entered the apartment, Ece was sitting on a sofa in the apartment’s huge lounge, comforting her boys.

After asking the officers whether they would like tea, Mustafa İstekli took them to one side. ‘I’ll tell you what I can about this morning, but I don’t know whether you’ll get much out of the boys.’

‘It was your younger son, Necip, who found the body, is that right, Mr İstekli?’ Kerim asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He was poking about in the water with a stick, as children do. I had my binoculars out. Levent and I were passing them between us. I’d spotted some goldfinches. The first time I realised anything was amiss was when I heard Necip begin to cry. I went over to him and asked him what the matter was, and it was then that I saw it.’

‘The child’s body?’

‘Yes. Necip thought the baby was asleep and began to cry when it didn’t wake up.’

‘And your other son?’ Eylül asked.

‘Levent followed me over to his brother. Unlike Necip, he could see exactly what it was, the same as I could. I grabbed both the boys and took them away from the scene and then I called you.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve always tried to protect my family, and so my children are not accustomed to such sights.’

Kerim said, ‘I understand.’

‘Do you?’ İstekli asked. ‘Inspector, I was brought up in Tarlabaşı, where death on the streets is not an uncommon occurrence. That and the sight of men dressed as women and all other kinds of unnatural practices is not what one wants to bring one’s children up around. I thought that here in Kağıthane we’d be away from the seedier side of life.’

Kerim, who lived in Tarlabaşı with his wife and four-year-old daughter, didn’t comment.

‘So what will Mehmet do while you’re reading everyone’s cards?’ Çetin İkmen asked Gonca.

They were drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes in the artist’s studio at the back of her old Greek house in Balat. Although married to Mehmet Süleyman, Gonca Şekeroğlu had been friends with Çetin İkmen for much longer. As a child, İkmen and his brother Halıl had been taken by their mother, Ayşe, a native Albanian and a witch, up to Sulukule, where the Roma had lived back in the 1960s. There he had met with Roma witches, including Gonca’s powerful mother, and the many Şekeroğlu children had played with the two little Turkish boys. Çetin had always had a soft spot for Gonca.

‘I mean, I may be wrong, but I can’t see him going house to house offering spiced pumpkin to people,’ İkmen continued.

Gonca waved this away. ‘He’s going to be wearing his great-grandfather’s uniform. I just want him to look Ottoman and gorgeous.’

‘Not sure whether having his face powdered white will enhance his appearance,’ İkmen said.

‘Oh, he doesn’t have to do that!’

‘Yes, he does. We all do. Either we’re doing Bocuk Gecesi or we’re not. And Bocuk Gecesi involves powdering your face white so the evil Bocuk witches think you’re already dead.’

Gonca thought for a moment. ‘Well, maybe a little powder, then.’

‘You don’t want him dragged down to hell . . .’

The cynical look on her face made İkmen clam up. These were not her traditions and so she only paid them lip service. Were Bocuk Gecesi a Roma festival, she would be taking it very seriously.

‘Have you seen Şeftali lately?’ he asked instead.

Gonca put up a series of large photographs of the Cihangir district on her easel and stared at them. Ornate nineteenth-century buildings nestled amongst tidy modern apartment blocks, their balconies festooned with flowers.

‘No,’ she said without looking at him. ‘Why would I want to go and spend time in her stinking hovel?’

‘Because she’s your cousin,’ İkmen said. ‘Because Şeftali predicted the pandemic . . .’

‘No she didn’t!’ She turned to him. ‘That was her demon.’

Şeftali Şekeroğlu was a professional falcı, a fortune teller. However, unlike most people in her line of work, she relied on not just tarot cards or coffee grounds to peer into someone’s future. She had a demon called a Poreskoro to help her. And while Çetin İkmen’s relationship with his mother’s world of magic and the unseen was at times deeply sceptical, he had actually seen the Poreskoro with his own eyes. If it was a trick, it was a good one.

İkmen had come to Balat to talk about the Bocuk Gecesi festival with Gonca at Mehmet’s request. Although on the surface she seemed like her usual confident self, it was going to be her first professional engagement since the pandemic, and her husband knew she was nervous. As well as reading cards, she was also going to be gathering material for one of her famous collages, which would represent the darkest night. Later on in the year it would be auctioned off to the benefit of a local charity dedicated to the care of street animals.

‘So how are you getting on with Orhan Paşa’s uniform?’ he asked her. ‘And how do you feel about touching a dead man’s clothes?’

Roma people believed that the property of the dead was inhabited by their spirits, which sought to remain on earth and do mischief to the living.

‘It’s Mehmet’s, not mine,’ she said. ‘You gage don’t believe as we do. Had he been Roma, I wouldn’t have touched it, wouldn’t have had it in the house. Anyway, it’s not as if the old man died in it.’

‘No, but he fought in it,’ İkmen said. ‘In the deserts of the Hejaz. Mehmet told me that when his mother gave him the uniform’ there was sand in one of the pockets.’

‘Well, there isn’t now,’ Gonca said. ‘I’ve taken it in – Orhan Paşa was one of those champagne- and caviar-swilling princes – and I’ve cleaned it thoroughly.’

He imagined her performing unintelligible cleansing rituals over it.

‘It will be ready for tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘And my husband will look fabulous.’

Ah, to be so in love, İkmen thought. He’d felt like that about his wife, Fatma, mother of his nine children, dead since 2016. They’d had a fiery relationship – he an atheist, she a devout Muslim – but they’d adored each other. He still loved her, in spite of her death, in spite of his girlfriend, Peri. And yet increasingly he thought more and more about Peri. Snarky and funny, she was good for him. He liked that she found sex both pleasurable and amusing – Fatma, in private, had always said she found the whole process hilarious too. Peri was also kind and tolerant. His children were not hers, and yet whenever they were at his place, she just fitted in with however many kids were at home at any one time. Ditto his transsexual cousin Samsun. A hard-working, if often tired, trans woman in her seventies, she pulled no punches for anyone. But Peri rolled with her sharp tongue and had finally gained her respect. İkmen’s eldest daughter Çiçek had told him some months ago, ‘Peri must love you very much, Dad, to put up with our family.’

He smiled to himself and saw that Gonca was smiling too. He knew that she knew exactly what he had been thinking.

‘Do you remember what you were doing just before your brother found the baby, Levent?’ Eylül Yavaş asked the eleven-year-old.

Ece İstekli squeezed her son close to her side. ‘It’s all right, Levent, you’ve done nothing wrong. Just answer the officer.’

The boy, who was skinny and tall for his age, pulled his arm across his eyes, wiping away a few nascent tears.

‘I was with Dad,’ he said. ‘We saw goldfinches.’

‘Was that exciting?’ Eylül asked.

He shrugged. She suspected that birdwatching was rather more Mustafa İstekli’s passion than that of his children.

‘I heard my brother start crying. He’s only little and so he does that sometimes,’ Levent said. ‘My dad went over to him, and then so did I.’

‘Levent, did you see anyone walking about around Kağıthane Creek this morning?’ Eylül said.

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Any dogs?’

People often took their dogs to open spaces like the creek where they had space to run and play off their leads.

‘No . . .’

‘There was a horsey.’

They all turned to look at little Necip, tucked in on the other side of his mother.

Kerim leant in towards the boy. ‘What kind of horsey was it, Necip? Was anybody riding it?’

‘Black,’ the boy said. ‘Black horsey.’



Sergeant Ömer Müngün leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers around the back of his head. Then he yawned.

Mehmet Süleyman looked up from his computer screen. ‘Bored, Sergeant?’

Ömer shook his head. ‘Sorry, boss,’ he said. ‘Not a lot of sleep last night. We’re trying to get Gibrail to sleep in his own room, but he won’t have it. Keeps on getting up, coming into our bedroom, jabbing me awake with his fingers and babbling at me.’

A native of a far eastern district of Turkey called the Tur Abdin, or Slaves of God, Ömer Müngün had been Mehmet Süleyman’s deputy for fifteen years. Now thirty-six, he lived with his young wife Yeşili, their three-year-old son Gibrail, and Ömer’s sister Peri in a small apartment in the central Gümüşsuyu district of the city. All members of an ancient religion centred on a Mesopotamian snake goddess called the Şahmeran, the Müngüns spoke Aramaic amongst themselves, and this was what Ömer meant when he described his son as ‘babbling’ at him. In spite of his own and his sister’s best efforts, Yeşili Müngün still couldn’t speak Turkish, which meant that Gibrail was basically a monoglot too. This upset Ömer, who wanted his son to blend in with other children as soon as possible. It was also a reminder of the fact that his marriage to Yeşili had been arranged by his parents. Three and a half years on from his wedding, he still was not in love with his wife.

‘They’re hard work when they’re that age,’ Süleyman said. His own son, who was now twenty and at university, had slept in his parents’ bed until he was four.

Ömer shook his head. ‘On top of that, nothing’s jumping out at me about the Sofija Ozola case,’ he said. ‘Certainly not in relation to Görkan Paşahan. The girl she shared with, Zuzanna Nowak, was the only person who mentioned Paşahan’s name. Not the landlady or the neighbours. Big blond Zuzanna Nowak . . .’

Süleyman shot him a disapproving look. ‘Yes. But back to business . . . Nowak lived with Ozola and so she’d know more than anyone else. But she retracted her statement that she had seen Paşahan on the day of Ozola’s death. Can you see if any forensics are still outstanding?’

‘I can, although I doubt it.’

Prostitutes like Sofija were frequently victims of crime and sometimes murder in İstanbul. Unless they worked for one of the fast-disappearing state-run brothels, they were vulnerable to attack from unscrupulous pimps, organised-crime gangs and their customers. Sofija Ozola had been fortunate enough to share an apartment with Zuzanna Nowak, who worked as a sociology lecturer at Koç University and had apparently got to know Sofija via a local gym. Nowak had known what Ozola did for a living when she’d agreed to share her apartment with her, which had seemed odd, but the Polish woman had explained it by saying that as a liberal, she couldn’t condemn Sofija for her choice of profession. Sex work, she’d told the police, was like any other job. But who would actually want to share an apartment with someone on the game? At the time, Süleyman had assumed that, like most people, Zuzanna was having trouble paying her rent. Landlords across the city had been ramping rents u